(Bloomberg) -- United Nations-led talks on Libya’s central bank crisis resumed, as a damaging oil blockade that’s slashed the OPEC member’s output nears a second month.
Representatives from the country’s eastern and western administrations are attending Wednesday’s round of negotiations in Tripoli, El-Hadi Elsaghir, a Libyan member of parliament who’s taking part, told Bloomberg by text message.
Libya’s rival sides have been at loggerheads since mid-August, when the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, the capital, moved to replace central bank governor Sadiq Al-Kabir, who manages billions of dollars of the North African nation’s oil wealth. Authorities in the east, where much of the crude is pumped, rejected that and ordered a shutdown of all production and exports.
Daily output in the nation that’s home to Africa’s largest reserves fell to about 450,000 barrels in the weeks following the start of the blockade, from more than 1 million before the crisis. Exports, however, are still reaching global markets and even climbed again in the past week.
Libya’s biggest crisis in more than four years has sparked intensive mediation efforts in an attempt to halt the country sliding back into civil war. Turkey and Egypt, who once backed opposing sides in a 2019-2020 conflict, are among those pushing the dueling administrations to reach a solution.
The country’s two legislative bodies — the House of Representatives based in the eastern city of Benghazi, and the High Council of State in Tripoli — have agreed in theory to jointly appoint new central bank leadership. But progress has been sluggish, and no formal meeting has taken place since Sept. 12.
(Updates with parliamentarian saying talks began, starting from first paragraph.)
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